


make all of the kids of the choir sing

by illinois_e



Category: Given (Manga)
Genre: Character Study, Its just a mess, Kinda, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, i have no idea how to tag this i swear, ugetsu breaks a lot of things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 18:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20344534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illinois_e/pseuds/illinois_e
Summary: like a child with too big hands, you always break your toys in the end. akihiko, it seems, is just another of them.[ugetsu, in between]





	make all of the kids of the choir sing

**Author's Note:**

> my friend who still didnt read given, proofreading this: i never read the manga and i dont know the ship dynamics  
me: its okay! its not like this makes sense, anyway.
> 
> (it's true, though. i really don't know what i did here. i just had to write something about ugetsu. anything)  
also, the title comes from liability (reprise), by lorde

when he leaves, your first thought is: maybe i shouldn’t have hit him.

it’s a flicking thing, in fact, a footnote on the back of your mind. maybe you shouldn’t have—maybe you shouldn’t have done a lot of things, but it’s not like that stopped you, before. it’s akihiko that shouldn’t have come when you told him not to, barged into your home like it belonged to him. like you belonged to him. it’s his fault, truly. 

it’s his fault. so you fall back down on the bed, into the arms of (what’s his name?) the guy you brought over for tonight, whom you told akihiko he was your boyfriend just to spite him — you don’t do boyfriends, not anymore —, and tangles your fingers into his hair. don’t worry, you say, while you press your lips into his neck. he’s not coming back. 

he tries to protest, to rise up, to go after akihiko and do god knows what, but you silence him with a finger to his lips, your hips straddling him. forget about him, you say, and it’s less of a order to him and more of a warning to yourself.

(later, when the man is gone, and you’re alone again, sitting beside the window with a cigarette dangling from your lips, unlit — from the pack that akihiko left — you wonder how could you forget him, when there are more of his things in your home than you’ve ever had of yourself anywhere)

* * *

somehow, over the next days, the footnote becomes the introduction, the cover page, the title; you’re eating instant noodles on the bed and remember how hot his face felt against your hand, and then you’ll raise your fingers to your cheek, touch the swollen, purple spot that has, in your eyes, the shape of his knuckles. as if he somehow wanted to mark you, to scare away anyone else that might come close, while he’s not here, a towering shadow behind your back.

distinctly, you remember touching the bruises he left on your arms, on your thighs, on your hips, after a particularly rough fucking, and wonder about how it’s the same thing, kind of—but you know it isn’t. that fact that you can even _ think _ that first sentence, however, says enough about yourself for you to throw a mug on the floor in rage, or maybe despair — your mug, not his; for yours is this pitiful, fungible thing, and his is irreplaceable.

and the worst of all is this: it’s not the first time you’ve hit him. rectified: it’s not the first time you’ve hit each other; it also won’t be the last. and it’s not even close to the worst fight you’ve had, not when you’ve drawn blood from each other times unconted and uncountable, when you’ve kissed each other’s bruises more times than you would like to remember.

and yet none of them left such a bitter taste in your mouth, before. the noodles are said to be vegetable-flavored but it could as well be ashes, for how they feel on your tongue. you might as well spit them out, throw the plate over the window, problem solved. instead, you swallow it, pushing past the feeling of stones tearing up your throat, lets it sit heavy on your stomach. you want to throw up.

instant noodles. how the mighty have fallen, and all that. you don’t know how to cook besides this (if it can even be considered cooking), eggs, and rice (in theory). and anyway, all the pans are dirty, piling up atop the stove. you should call someone to clean it, before the cockroaches take over. you should call akihiko—not to clean it. just because.

you miss his voice.

it’s a good thing, you ponder, that you can’t find your phone around the mess you’ve made of the house. it’s a good thing because, in that moment, you would cave in. you would call him. you would say _ come back _ and _ i’ve broken up with him _ (even if he was just an one-night stand you never thought about seeing twice). you miss the sound of his fingers tapping against the table, a poor imitation of that even poorer instrument he loves so much. you miss the weight of his head atop your lap as you watch a movie and he sleeps. you miss shared practice, miss vivaldi’s concerti synchronized between your violin and his. winter, in f minor.

(because spring, akihiko says, is overrated; and although you roll his eyes at him whenever he says it, you’re tempted to agree)

* * *

your violin sits, untouched, by the foot of your bed. 

it feels, somehow, alien in a way you’ve never thought it would be. never thought it _ could _ be. you don’t remember spending that many time without playing ever since— well, ever since the start. from the beginning of time until now, it was you and the violin, _ youandtheviolin _, the instrument blending into your body to the point that its strings became your veins. to the point that, whenever you draw the bow across them, you can feel your blood thrumming underneath the thin skin of a pale wrist.

you wonder if that was something that happened once, with brahms. did he ever look at his violin and thought he couldn’t play it? did paganini’s hands simply refuse to raise the bow, even as his fingers itched for it?

but then, you think: has any of them ever felt this thing you’re feeling now? this ache in the hollow of your bones, this tightening of the spaces between your ribs?

you don’t believe so. because they lived for the music, and for the music only—as you once said you would. you aren’t in love with anyone. you’re in love with the music. isn’t that right? aren’t these the words that burned below your skin since the first time your fingers strummed the chords (a pizzicato, you would learn), since you learned what you were born for?

you rise up, because anything is better than this suspended state of existence you’re living in. like dead wood floating up on a lake, you are waiting. and waiting. and waiting; for something you don’t know (for something you know more than anything, although every word that leaves your tongue will proclaim the contrary, on some sort of wicked and twisted evangelion of yourself).

you rise up, but you don’t reach for the violin. instead, you storm around, bringing everything down with your hands. the clothes — his clothes — from the wardrobe, the books from the shelves, the plates from the sink. you turn the tables over, throw the chairs halfway across the room, hurl your phone against the television. 

the noise it makes it’s something terrifying for your ears, the most disharmonic melody you’ve ever had the displeasure of composing. it scratches and cries and screams, and you hope it’s loud enough for akihiko to hear, from whatever bed he’s sleeping right now, from whichever person he’s fucking right now. you break things in the hope that he’ll come back and put them in place with three words, two flicks of his wrist and one hard kiss pressed against your lips, enough to bruise.

you break things in the hope that he’ll come back and put _ you _in place.

it’s stupid, really. you are the stupid one, here, because somehow, some part of you — the same one which makes you close your eyes whenever you fit the violin in the space between your chin and your shoulder; the same one who gave up everything you’ve ever had and everything you could’ve ever had, for music —, the only part of you that it’s still whole, knows that he’s not coming back. maybe, if you ask him—but you’re not going to ask him. you’ve already asked everything from him, after all. you sucked him dry.

like a child with too big hands, you always break your toys in the end. akihiko, it seems, is just another of them.

* * *

you grab one of his drumsticks, taps it against the golden plate — _ cymbal _ , he would correct you — as you saw akihiko do thousands and thousands of times. the vibrations of it make your whole arm shake. the sound feels— dirty. you don’t have any other word for it. it’s just _ wrong. _ you don’t remember it sounding so sinful when it was akihiko sitting where you are now.

the shudder that passes through your body is almost inhuman.

(but are you human still, or just a mismatched man-shaped knot of violin strings?)

* * *

in between the mess you made of your house and the mess you made of your life, akihiko’s mug may be the only thing still standing in one piece. you think it’s funny how a piece of white ceramic was the only thing your rage deigned to left untouched. the only thing that remained.

the fact that there’s a thin layer of dust over your violin case when you pick it would be enough for you to slap yourself on the face—at least, that’s what you think. that was just something that never had time to happen, before, so you can’t say exactly how you would have reacted, under distinct circumstances. it’s a first, in your life. you wonder how many more there are still to go.

irrationally, you feared that you might’ve somehow forgotten how to play, after so many days. but it’s just like riding a bicycle, isn’t it? besides the fact that you never learned how to ride one. what you do remember it sitting behind akihiko on his bike, his feet pedaling hard to sustain both his weight and yours; remember tightening your fingers in his school uniform, afraid to fall. what if you broke a hand, after all, or a wrist? how could you play, then? what would you do?

you remember sitting behind him on his brand new motorbike, and you’re just as afraid to fall as before, if not more, but he says: raise your hands. and you say: are you crazy? i’ll fall. and then he says: i won’t let you, ugetsu. trust me.

you think: he’s crazy. you think: _ i _ am crazy. and then you do it, then, with the confidence of a man walking towards certain death; your arms loosen from where they were around his waist and reach up for the moon. with the black sky above you speckled with stars, the sound of the wind rushing through the gaps on your stretched fingers may be the most beautiful melody you could ever hope to hear. 

you look to the door, wait for three beats of your heart to pass. you can feel your fingers itching. your whole body is a over-strung chord. you’re gonna break yourself up. you’re gonna sing a concerto only you know the notes of.

(akihiko is nowhere to be seen)

so you do the only thing you know how to do: you sit between the broken pieces of your mug, the broken pieces of your life, and you play.

**Author's Note:**

> if you didnt understand anything, dont worry. i didnt either
> 
> anyway im just: UGETSU [backflips into the sun]


End file.
